Guide · Six levels

Six levels, one ladder.

The CEFR levels describe what you can do in a language, not which grammar you have memorised. For Spanish, the Instituto Cervantes curriculum says which words, forms and habits get you there, and the DELE exams test it, level by level.

A1 to C2 · CEFR, Plan Curricular and DELE
Latin American Spanish · Rioplatense vos

Level by level.

Choose a level to read what it asks of you: what you can do, the Spanish it takes, how it sounds, and how the exam checks it. Arrow keys move along the ladder.

Loading the levels…

Side by side.

One facet at a time, across all six levels: what each step adds, rather than six lists of grammar.

A1
Get through highly predictable personal situations with a cooperative listener.
A2
Handle routine exchanges, and describe your immediate surroundings and simple past events.
B1
Operate on your own in most familiar travel, work, study and social situations.
B2
Discuss abstract issues and defend a point of view with enough fluency for sustained interaction.
C1
Work flexibly and effectively in social, academic and professional settings, and read what is left unsaid.
C2
Understand virtually everything, and express very fine distinctions naturally across complex domains.

Check your level.

A level is a performance, judged on five qualities at once. Someone who conjugates the imperfect subjunctive perfectly but needs thirty seconds per sentence is not showing B2 interaction. Someone who slips on an article while holding a well-built B2 argument may well be.

Five qualities, all at once

Range: How much language you have for what you mean, without narrowing it.
Accuracy: How reliably the grammar holds, and whether an error causes misunderstanding.
Fluency: How evenly the speech flows, and how long the pauses are while you search.
Interaction: How well you open, hold, hand over and repair a conversation.
Coherence: How the ideas connect into a sequence the listener can follow.

Three steps before you book an exam

Profile yourself against the Council of Europe’s self-assessment grid across the five skills. It is a first-pass diagnostic, deliberately not an exam. Council of Europe · CEFR self-assessment grid
Audit your grammar, functions, pronunciation and lexical fields against the Instituto Cervantes curriculum for the level you are aiming at. Instituto Cervantes · Plan Curricular: Niveles de referencia para el español
Complete an official DELE model paper at that level under its real time limits, recording the speaking tasks and writing without help. Instituto Cervantes · DELE examinations, model papers and guides

Test and certify

An online quiz that says “B2” is not a DELE or SIELE result. Certification, placement and practice are different things, and exam fees vary by country, centre and year.

DELE model examinations
The best free readiness test for a planned DELE. Do a complete model under timed conditions; each level page links its model, specification and guide.
FreePractice only
DELE examination
When an institution or employer needs a permanent, level-specific qualification. The only straightforward route to a C2 diploma.
PaidFee varies by country, centre, year and levelOfficial diploma with indefinite validity
SIELE Global simulator
A readiness check for SIELE candidates, and a way to get used to computer delivery of the four skill areas.
FreePractice only
SIELE Global
When a quick, scored profile across skills is more useful than committing to one DELE level in advance.
PaidFee depends on the test centreCertificate valid for five years, with a score from 0 to 1000 and a CEFR equivalence
Council of Europe self-assessment grid
A first-pass diagnostic across listening, reading, spoken interaction, spoken production and writing, before choosing a level-specific mock exam.
FreePractice only
Plan Curricular del Instituto Cervantes
The diagnostic checklist for what your level means specifically in Spanish: grammar, pronunciation, spelling, functions, pragmatics, genres and lexical notions, at every level.
FreePractice only
Instituto Cervantes placement tests
Placing you in that centre’s course sequence before you enrol. Not a substitute for DELE or SIELE. Conditions differ from centre to centre.
VariesOften part of enrolment at a centrePractice only
Instituto Cervantes DELE preparation
From A2 upward, when the language is broadly there but exam technique is weak. Packages range from self-directed online preparation to tutor-led courses with simulations.
PaidPrice depends on the centre and packageA course record, not the diploma itself
Lengalia placement test
An informal placement indicator when choosing a course from A1 to C2. Treat the certificate as a commercial course credential.
VariesPlacement within a paid course platformIts own course certificate at a 70% threshold, not equivalent to DELE
GlobalExam DELE preparation
Extra timed practice after the official models. Independent of the exam administrators, so the Instituto Cervantes models stay the reference for the real format.
PaidSubscriptionPractice only
University language-centre placement
Admission or course placement at that university. A poor substitute when an external credential is needed, unless the institution issues an accredited one. Arrangements change; verify the current test, fee and recognition with the university.
VariesOften free for prospective or enrolled studentsPractice only

Before the levels, the idea.

What CEFR, PCIC and DELE each are

The CEFR is a performance standard: six levels described by language-independent can-do statements from the Council of Europe. It deliberately prescribes no grammar syllabus, no word count, no accent and no number of hours. The Plan Curricular del Instituto Cervantes turns those levels into Spanish-specific inventories of grammar, pronunciation, spelling, functions, pragmatics, discourse, genres and lexical notions. DELE is the level-specific exam.

Knowing all the B2 grammar is neither necessary nor sufficient for B2. A candidate is judged on performing B2 tasks with B2 range, accuracy, fluency, interaction and coherence. Someone with gaps in a few structures can still show the level; someone who conjugates every tense mechanically has not.

There is no official word count

Neither the CEFR nor the Cervantes curriculum sets a number of words per level. Figures such as “B2 is 4,000 words” are pedagogical estimates, and they depend on whether someone counts surface words, lemmas, word families, receptive or productive vocabulary. The curriculum specifies progressively richer lexical fields instead.

From B2 upward the count matters less and less: growth is mostly collocation, phraseology, register and quick access to alternatives, not more headwords.

There is no official hour count

No universal hours-per-level rule exists. Two Instituto Cervantes centres disagree by a factor of two on A1 alone: Leeds designs it as 60 classroom hours and Istanbul as 120. Published hours describe one institution’s course, not a proficiency criterion.

Use them to plan a course, never as proof of a level. Above B2 no credible figure exists at all, and readiness is shown by performance.

You do not need a Castilian accent

Spanish proficiency is pan-Hispanic. The curriculum records voseo and the American use of ustedes from the early levels. A consistent seseante or yeísta pronunciation is not less proficient than the Spain-central distinction. DELE B1 refers to standard varieties that are not excessively localised, B2 includes texts in different varieties, and C1 and C2 expect any variety.

Pronunciation progresses from intelligible sounds, to connected speech, to prosody that carries meaning, to flexibility across accents. Accent elimination is never the target.

Tú, usted, vos, vosotros, ustedes

There is no pan-Hispanic formula in which tú is informal and usted is formal; the distribution differs by region, age and community. Vos is grammatical and socially normal in several American varieties, including the Río de la Plata. Vosotros is central in most of Spain and absent from ordinary use across most of Hispanic America, where ustedes is the only plural you.

Build one stable productive system, and broad receptive awareness of the others. The curriculum records these systems from the first levels, and the exams reward understanding them long before anyone expects you to switch between them.

A note on this guide

Written for this archive from the Council of Europe’s level descriptions, the Instituto Cervantes curriculum and the published DELE specifications, distilled from a research report that compared them. Descriptors are paraphrased, exam tasks are original examples in the published format, and the hours are one institution’s course design. Spanish examples follow this archive’s Latin American, Rioplatense stance. Prices are left out because they change by country, centre and year.